THE FACTS

You find a potential client. You send them your CV and they love it. They ask you to do a test translation. When you receive their test, you think “Piece of cake.” You do the translation using the best of your knowledge and send it back to the client. You’re abso-freaking-lutely that your test is perfect and that you’ll get a pass.

THE PROBLEM

Instead, you receive an email from the potential client, who regrets to tell you that you failed. How’s that possible? How did your perfect test end up in their Trash folder? Angry and frustrated as you are, you ask them to send you their reviewer’s corrections. And they do.

THE HEART ATTACK

When you open the revised file, you see that their reviewer has corrected your translation based on an imaginary grammar! In other words, the reviewer has fallen into the pit of common grammar errors and traps.

What do you do? Do you correct the reviewer’s corrections? It’s sad to realize that a non-professional translator managed to sell his inadequate proofreading services to your potential client and that now you are the one who failed:-(

This has happened three times so far in my 16-year career. Of course I did correct the reviewer’s corrections, by inserting comments with explanations, arguments and references to the appropriate grammar rules. I had to prove that the reviewer was wrong. And I did it!

THE RESULT

At the end, the potential client apologized for this misunderstanding, terminated their co-operation with their reviewer and asked me to sign their NDA.

A win-win situation, if you are the lucky one to receive your file back from the reviewer. We all know that clients hardly give you feedback about your test piece:(

But it’s worth trying!